The Assassin's Trail (24 page)

The sensation of tumbling like a leaf in a strong wind was overwhelming. He wasn’t sure how long he tumbled, but he ended up on his back. The surrounding blackness was more intense than any in his experience. Standing, he looked around. Off in the distance, he noticed a bright light. Instinctively, he turned toward the light and started walking. Or something that felt like walking.

As he got closer, the diameter of the light suddenly grew larger. It rushed toward him until he was engulfed by a blinding white. Squinting at the brightness, he continued to walk forward as the surrounding light changed to swirling shades of blues, yellows, reds and greens. Voices could be heard, although he did not understand the words.

As he walked, he heard his mother call his name. Then his father’s voice could be heard, but what he said was unintelligible.

Then just as suddenly as they started, the voices stopped. He stood still and felt himself pulled backward, away from the light. His last thought before the darkness took him again was how disappointing it was not being able to talk to his parents.

***

Fayetteville, AR

Saturday morning

“My name is Alan Seltzer. I am the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I will make a brief statement, then take a few questions.”

Seltzer stood in front of the Washington Regional Medical Center in northern Fayetteville. The podium was littered with microphones, placed there by all of the national news organizations plus numerous local and regional outlets gathered in Fayetteville following the events of the previous day. He grasped the sides of the podium and spoke without notes. Facing him was an ever-increasing crowd of journalists. After Kruger’s successful thwarting of the planned destruction of Bud Walton Arena, he needed to divert attention away from the investigation.

“On Friday, at approximately six fifty-two in the morning, the first of three vans, each containing approximately 500 kilograms of a combination of Ammonium Nitrate and Nitromethane, was spotted by the Missouri Highway Patrol and deputies from the McDonald County Sheriff’s Department. The vehicle was traveling south on I-49. After repeated attempts to stop the vehicle were ignored by the driver, tire spikes were deployed near Jane, Missouri. When the vehicle became disabled, the driver detonated the explosives within the vehicle. The resulting explosion destroyed the vehicle and killed the driver.

“At that same time Arkansas Highway Police were in a high speed chase on a section of I-49 in Crawford Country, Arkansas. They were in pursuit of a northbound van of similar description. When the van was half way through the Bobby Hopper Tunnel, it detonated.”

Seltzer paused and took a sip from a bottle of water on the podium. The pause started an avalanche of questions being shouted by the journalists. Seltzer raised his hands, palms out, to quiet the crowd. After the shouting subsided, he began again.

“As has been reported by the Arkansas Highway Department, sections of the tunnel have collapsed. It is unknown at this time if any civilian vehicles were present when the tunnels structural integrity was compromised. It is known that one Highway Police vehicle was in the tunnel. The total number of casualties is currently unknown, but we can assume the officer in the patrol car and the driver of the van are deceased. Rescue operations are underway for any possible survivors. However, it may be days before construction crews can clear the tunnel.

“Finally, at seven thirty-one, a white van was spotted by FBI agents approaching the campus of the University of Arkansas and Bud Walton Arena. The vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed when it diverted from Razorback Road and drove toward the west entrance of the building. One of our agents fired his service weapon at the van as it approached his position. The van detonated prior to reaching the building. Several civilians were injured in the blast, but no fatalities, except the driver of the van.

“I will now take your questions.”

Chaos ensued, but Seltzer remained calm and searched for several journalists he had met with earlier so he could provide properly prepared answers. He spotted a female reporter from CNN and pointed at her.

“Director Seltzer,” said Angela Newton, “what is the condition of the agent who stopped the van?”

“FBI Special Agent Sean Kruger is in critical condition in the intensive care unit in the hospital behind me.”

Newton followed up with another question. “What would have happened if the van had detonated inside Bud Walton Arena?”

Seltzer blinked several times. “As all of you are aware, the Walmart Annual Shareholders meeting had just started when the incident occurred. At that time there were over fifteen thousand individuals in the building. Since then, structural engineers have been consulting with FBI investigators. It is their opinion that if the van had managed to drive into the building before detonating, the estimated casualties count would have been higher than we experienced during the 9/11 attack.”

This statement caused even more shouting. Seltzer pointed at another familiar journalist.

“Director Seltzer,” said Chris Jansing of NBC News, “can you tell us who uncovered this plot?”

“I can’t get into specifics at this time, but it was a combination of numerous local law enforcement agencies and the FBI.”

Another question was shouted, “Did this plot have anything to do with the recent attempt on Congressman Roy Griffin’s life?”

Seltzer shook his head. “We are investigating, but right now, we don’t think it does.”

He felt bad about lying in front of the camera, put too little was known at this point. He pointed to another reporter.

“What about the explosion in Kansas City, is that incident related?”

“Once again, we are investigating. As soon as we have completed our investigation, we will let all of you know.”

A question was shouted by an unseen reporter, “Has any group declared responsibility for these attacks?”

Seltzer took a deep breath and paused briefly. “Not at this time.”

The news conference continued for several more minutes with the same questions asked in different ways. Seltzer finally said, “Thank you,” before he turned and walked back toward the hospital’s entrance.

***

His eyes opened briefly, everything unfocused. The shape above him morphed into a woman looking down at him. She was dressed in a floral print pullover shirt with blue pants. He guessed she was in her mid-50s, with short grayish brown hair, a round face with rimless glasses and a friendly smile. “Welcome back, Agent Kruger.”

His throat was extremely dry, and his lips felt like they would crack if moved. But he managed to say in a raspy voice, barely above a whisper, “How long?”

Her smile never wavered, “You’ve been with us for twenty-four hours.”

He nodded ever so slightly and closed his eyes again.

The next time he opened his eyes, no one stood above him, but he felt pressure on his left hand. He looked over and saw Stephanie sitting in a chair next to him holding his hand. He croaked, “Hi.”

She looked up from the book she was reading and smiled. She immediately stood, leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Hi, back.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Three days; it’s Monday.”

He nodded, “Got any water?”

She nodded and held a cup with a lid and straw to his lips. He sipped cautiously. The water seemed to clear his head a bit. He stopped sipping and lay his head back on the pillow.

“Sean, how are you feeling?”

“Like shit. What happened?”

“You don’t know?”

“I remember getting to Bud Walton Arena and talking to Tom Stark. Not much after that.”

She explained what she knew and finally said, “You saved thousands of lives, Sean. I’m proud of you.”

He smiled slightly, closed his eyes and drifted back into unconsciousness.

***

“The news media wants an interview.”

Kruger shook his head. He was sitting up in bed, the IV still attached, but his focus was sharper and he wasn’t drifting in and out of consciousness. Stephanie was sitting in the chair next to the bed. Her arms folded across her chest, her eyebrows pinched together as she glared at Seltzer.

Kruger said, “No, Alan, you know I don’t do interviews, particularly from a hospital bed.”

“Paul thinks it would be good for the bureau’s image.”

“Then let Paul do the interviews. I’m not.”

Seltzer smiled, “You’re back to being your old self. Good.”

Stephanie stood and walked around the bed. Leaning close to Alan’s face for emphasis, she said, “Back off, Alan. Sean almost died.”

Kruger chuckled. “Someone told me I was clinically dead when I arrived.”

Stephanie shot him a look of disfavor. “It’s not funny. I could have lost you.” A tear appeared in her eye. “I almost did.”

“Sorry.” Kruger turned his attention to Seltzer. “Have they identified the man driving the van?”

Shaking his head, Seltzer walked to the hospital room door and closed it. He came back to Kruger’s bedside.

“No. There wasn’t much left,” he said. “They found several body parts and are using the DNA for a possible match. No one really expects it will be successful. We did get a break, however. An individual, who claims he was supposed to drive the van, turned himself in. He’s being interviewed at the Tulsa field office. His information is consistent with what we know about the other two vans. We have those two drivers’ names. All three men were from the mosque in San Francisco.”

“Have they found the Imam?”

“No, probably won’t either. Charlie called and said our friend in Springfield found a TSA surveillance shot of the Imam going through security in Oakland. We’re trying to track his destination.”

“He’s gone, Alan.”

“We know that. We want to know where.”

Kruger nodded and reached for Stephanie’s hand. She gently placed her hand on it, and they both stared at Seltzer.

Seltzer shuffled his feet and looked around the room. “Well, I guess I’d better get back to Washington. I’ve done all the damage I can do here.” He shook Kruger’s free hand and nodded at Stephanie.

As he opened the door, he turned. “Paul said the President sends his best wishes and is deeply grateful for your service. He’ll be in contact when you feel better.”

“He doesn’t need to do that, Alan, I was doing my job.”

“He knows that, but…” Seltzer smiled and walked out of the room.

Kruger looked at Stephanie. “I think I screwed up in reverse.”

“What do you mean?”

“By stopping the last van, I’ve put us in the public eye. It will go viral. We’re going to be bombarded with lawyers and promotional types who want to represent us. You wait and see, it’ll get stupid.”

“Oh, Sean, it might be fun.”

He shook his head rapidly. “No, it will not be fun. As I told Alan, I was doing my job. A job I’m no longer willing to do.”

She was quiet, her gaze remaining on him. After several moments, a smile slowly came to her lips.

Kansas City, MO

Two months later

The condo's doorbell rang. Kruger was sitting on the sofa reading and Stephanie was at the kitchen table working on adoption papers. She looked at Kruger with a puzzled expression, he shrugged, and got up to answer the door.

After looking through the security peep hole, he sighed and opened the door.

“Hello, Alan.”

Alan Seltzer offered his hand and said, “How are you feeling, Sean?”

Kruger gave his old friend’s hand a short two-pump shake and released it quickly. “Fine, Alan. Do you want to come in?”

Seltzer stood in the hallway hesitantly, then nodded and stepped past Kruger.

Stephanie frowned as she saw her husband’s old boss walk through the front door. She said, “He’s retired Alan. What do you want?”

“Let’s say I want to talk to an old friend who made a bad decision about his career.”

Kruger shook his head slowly. “Can I get you anything, Alan? Coffee, iced tea, a beer?”

Seltzer shook his head. “No, thank you, I'm fine. I can’t stay long. I'm interviewing a few local agents for the SAC position. I have a dinner meeting with one in an hour over in Overland Park. I’ll need to leave shortly. But the director wanted me to stop by and tell you he was disappointed in your decision. He also wanted me to ask you to reconsider.”

Kruger gave Seltzer a grim smile. “No, Alan, I'm retired.”

Seltzer shook his head. “Not technically. The director put you on medical leave. He hasn’t actually turned in your retirement papers.”

Kruger stared at Seltzer, but was silent.

Stephanie stood and walked over to her husband. Her face flushed and she crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you talking about, Alan? He turned those papers in a month ago.”

“I know, but the director wanted him classified on medical leave until he recovered from the incident in Fayetteville.”

Chuckling, Kruger shook his head. “Is that what they’re calling it? The incident in Fayetteville?”

Seltzer nodded and smiled slightly. “Yes, we’re still getting requests from reporters wanting access to all of the files. So far, nothing has leaked.”

“Why does the agency insist on hiding the facts the shootings in Washington, the KC bombing, the attempted assassination of Congressman Griffin and Fayetteville, are all related?”

“One of the President’s advisors told him it made all of us look incompetent.”

Kruger rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “The only one looking incompetent is the person making the suggestion.”

“I have a tendency to agree, but there is another more serious underlying reason.”

“What?”

“There is a growing concern within the Bureau that these types of internal attacks are going to get worse and more common.”

“I’m not following you.”

“As we dig deeper into the background of the man who planned this whole episode, we’re finding evidence this may just be the tip of the iceberg. After the financial meltdown in 2008, many of the safety nets for people living in poverty were taken away. There is a whole generation of young men and women who are growing up struggling to survive. Plus, television shows them what they don’t have. They’ll be reaching their late teens here in a few years.”

“They’re angry, aren’t they?”

“That’s how Aazim Abbas recruited.”

“Was that his name?”

Nodding, Seltzer walked over to the sliding glass door that looked out over The Plaza and put his hands behind his back. He gazed out over the lights with his back to Kruger and Stephanie. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Yes. He was a policeman in Bagdad at one time. We helped train him. We taught him how to detect terrorist and uncover conspiracies. We aren’t sure of how Abbas recruited Ortega. We can’t find any evidence they worked together or even met while Ortega was in Bagdad. But we’re still looking.”

Seltzer turned and looked at Kruger. “Ironic isn’t it. We actually trained the guy on how to be a terrorist. He used our own tactics against us.”

Kruger did not respond.

“My whole point is this: Ortega, Billy Reid and Cooper all returned to the states from overseas and couldn’t find good paying jobs. Their training made them practically unemployable. Reid was a marksman, but he was also scarred from an IED attack. He was supposed to get plastic surgery to reduce his scarring, but his case fell through the cracks at the Veteran’s Hospital, so he gave up.

“Cooper was an expert in explosives. Not a lot of work for someone like that, except maybe in construction. Unfortunately for him, there wasn’t a lot of building going on in rural Alabama. Ortega was just mad at the world. We’re still digging into his past.”

Stephanie spoke up after being silent for a while, she said, “Alan, surely Ortega saw through this Abbas person’s motives?”

“We don’t think so. At least not at first.” Seltzer turned to look at her. “According to Billy Reid, Ortega was avenging fallen comrades by killing the men who supplied shoddy equipment to the military. Reid knew it was a scam; all he cared about was the money.”

Kruger frowned. “Why was Congressman Griffin targeted?”

“According to Billy, Ortega thought Griffin was responsible for accepting the lowest bid for military equipment.”

“That’s nuts. He was a freshman congressman.”

“Once again, the power of persuasion by Abbas. He knew Ortega’s hot button. It didn’t have to be true; it just had to make sense to Ortega for him to act.”

Kruger hesitated for a moment and rubbed his forehead. “What was the real reason Griffin was targeted?”

“We don’t know for sure, but we believe it was because he was a fervent supporter of Israel. His district around San Francisco is predominantly Jewish.”

“That actually makes sense. What about the other three victims?”

Alan smiled grimly. “Every single one of them was rich, Jewish and gave heavily to Israel support groups.”

Kruger nodded, but remained quiet.

“Do you remember how the owner of the warehouse in Tulsa claimed to receive a call?”

“Yeah.”

“Examination of Ortega’s cell phone reveals he was the one who called the owner.”

“How did he know who it was?”

“We asked the same question. There is a security camera recording of him in the Tulsa County Assessor’s office. Apparently he got the information there.”

“Why would he do something like that?

Seltzer shrugged. “We don’t know, but the call was made a few hours before he was shot.”

“Second thoughts, perhaps.”

“Yeah, probably.” He paused for a few moments. “We got lucky at the Bobby Hopper Tunnel. Only seven fatalities. Two of which were the terrorist and the police officer in the patrol car right behind him.”

“Five civilians and a police officer dead does not sound lucky.”

“Normally, at that time of day, there’s a lot of commuter traffic going into Fayetteville. Due to the high speed pursuit, the only other traffic in the tunnel was going south.”

“Still…”

Seltzer just nodded. After a brief uncomfortable lag in the conversation, Seltzer walked toward the front door. “What should I tell the director?”

“Turn my paperwork in. I’m done.”

“What are you going to do?”

Kruger shrugged.

“Okay, I’ll tell him.” He offered his hand, which Kruger shook. “Good luck Sean, we… I’ll miss you. The Bureau won’t be the same.”

Seltzer opened the door, looked at his old friend briefly, then walked out. Kruger closed the door and leaned his back against it. “Am I doing the right thing, Stephanie?”

She walked up to him and placed her arms around his waist, but remained quiet.